


'You know I adore you, I'm crazier for you than I was at 16

by LENNYX



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Canon Compliant, College Student Adam Parrish, M/M, they're so soft and they love each other so much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-10-12 02:01:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20556377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LENNYX/pseuds/LENNYX
Summary: “Hey! fuck did I say about bringing up Gansey or any of them when our dicks are touching?”“Huh, I dunno?” Adam blinks, faux owlish. God, Ronan’s in love with such a sarcastic asshole.“I hate you and this is over.” Ronan tells him, matter of fact.“Sounds reasonable,” Adam says, unimpressed while he gets up. The dim light of the room caresses the soft lines and flat planes of his beautiful face, skirts across the dips and valleys of his shoulders and stomach muscles and brings out the specs of gold in his hair. Ronan thinks back to earlier that day when Adam had teasingly called him an enigma, and silently laughs to himself, because Adam knows him. Adam knows the gears and slings that operate in his body and the staples of his life that sing in his soul. The memory of his parents, Matthew— reluctantly Declan too— The Barns, their friends, Adam himself.Adam knows all the intimate bits that string Ronan together but sometimes Ronan wonders if it’ll ever be a mutual trade.





	'You know I adore you, I'm crazier for you than I was at 16

Ronan flies out to Cambridge on a Thursday afternoon. 

It’s the middle of October, first semester of university, the place where Adam’s fighting and sweating and succeeding as always in Harvard. proving wrong some invisible force that continues to envelop him whole in ways Cabeswater could’ve only dreamed of. (Sometimes, when Ronan can’t sleep, and he’s watching the ever rigid tension seemingly woven into Adam’s shoulders, he wants to ask if that invisible force has the shape of Robert Parrish, and if Adam could ever escape that particular demon. But Ronan never asks and Adam never leads on and that’s enough most of the time.)

Stepping out onto the terminal, Ronan checks his watch— a fancy, leather banded thing with an Italian name. The exact replica he’d once seen Niall dawn. It’s just turned a quarter after three, Adam’s stuck in his lecture till at least half past four, so instead of waiting Ronan waves down a cab and gives the address to the campus.

It’s a miserably rainy New England autumn day, chilly and pouring and all the things Ronan hates. 

Fuck.

It’s not even a school break or anything like that. The only reason why Ronan’s even here, and why Adam agreed to take a voluntary day off is because last week— during one of their insanely frequent Skype sessions where Adam would work on his assignments and Ronan would dick around the farm, punctured by their occasional conversations— Adam had stated, in that measured, stripped down way of his, that they were nearly reaching their one year mark.

“Fuck out here?” Ronan had balked, which in Ronan terms means he snorted with a considerably less snarl. “Who would’ve bet on that?”

“I would have,” Adam says, and fuck, Ronan fucking hates shitty technology because now instead of it just being their stupid voices Adam can see the way those simple little words have elicited an insanely embarrassing response from Ronan. Cheeks and ears infused red and pale eyes darting anywhere but at the screen, thinking that it would probably reck him if he got to see the look on Adam’s face and not be able to kiss him right then. 

“Me too,” he softly confesses. 

“You know Lynch,” Adam had begun with that customary, shit eating charm Ronan was much more comfortable with at this particular moment. “Most normal couples celebrate that kind of shit.”

“You saying we’re not normal Parrish? Because I take that as a fucking offense.”

“I dunno,” Adam levels him with a look through the laptop monitor, low voice transforming to a husky, Henrietta drawl. “You wanna celebrate or not?”

That had been what spurred Ronan on to buying a ticket that night, and what brought him to this hellish fortress of highfalutin academics and the bratty kids of senators and ambassadors and millionaires who think of university as merely a downtime until they can get that pretty little superlative to smack on some inconsequential resume.

Except no, this isn’t the ninth circle of hell because Adam’s here, and that makes everything pretty alright.

~*~

Adam meets Ronan at a coffee shop cusping the campus’s borders and nearly topples over his drink when he crashes his lips against Ronan’s as soon as the laws of physics would allow it— a cacophony of lips and teeth and spit that makes Ronan’s toes curl.

“Fucking settle the fuck down Parrish,” Ronan scolds with no actual heat, as if he weren’t meeting every peck with the same amount of fervency, as if his hands weren’t patting up and down his face and locking in his hair, this edge of desperate.

“Embarrassing ya?” Adam teases, nudging their noses together. 

“Sorry to break it to ya lover boy, but You’re always fucking embarrassing me.”

Adam only leers, carding an appreciative hand through Ronan’s grown out locks. “Lover boy? Hah, i like that. Imma gonna have to use that.”

“I fucking dare you.”

Adam tips back his head with laughter, and Ronan decidedly stays quiet, pretends that the sound isn’t all the golden and splendid and wonderful things he’s ever known strung together, like the most beautiful instrument.

Sometimes Ronan reminds himself that no, he did not in fact dream Adam.

~*~

They do not fucking hold hands all the way to Adam’s dorm because that is totally lame and wimpy and for fucking dorky little bitches. 

But if their pinkies are hooked into one another’s… Well then, who the fuck is even asking?

~*~

“I swear to God Ronan!” Adam reprimands, face set in a scowl and swatting Ronan’s hand away from where it was cupping his ass while Adam was trying to gather the last of his things to throw in his duffle.

“Hey, don’t swear to your creator prick.”

Adam just waggles his tongue at him and Ronan dips down to bite it, which then leads to Adam giving a curious tug onto Ronan’s hair, making the dreamer moan and Adam get this sharp, instinctive gleam to his eyes that always means trouble in the most spectacular of ways. 

Half an hour later Ronan’s lounging lazily on Adam’s twin sized bed while the aforementioned boy is zipping up the last of his necessary belongings and cursing at him to “Get the fuck up already.”

“Alright, alright madonna, don’t put your fucking panties in a twist.”

“Pretty misogynistic smack for a dude who just had my dick up his ass like ten minutes ago.”

“Yo, I like what I like, doesn’t mean I can’t still pound the face of any fuck that tries getting at me,” Ronan sniffs, mock indignant.

Adam only snorted, letting out a dry breath that tells Ronan that he’s reluctantly amused.

“Fine whatever, you’re an enigma rapped in a contradiction,” Adam waves him off in a universally recognized shooing away motion, making Ronan role his eyes while slipping back on his boxers and jeans. “my point still holds, if you can’t say it in front of Blue, reckon you can’t say it at all.”

“What a peachy bit of advice honey dumplin,” Ronan says in a falsetto, putting on his best imitation of Adam’s accent he can. 

“You. Are. A. Piece. Of. Shit.” Adam tells him between sugar cloaked kisses that taste like coffee and blueberries and the splendor of The Barns at dawn.

Collecting their things and locking up his dorm, the pair don’t make it down the hall before being accosted by another student. An objectively pretty student with long curly hair wrapped into a messy topknot, and warm dark skin, with even darker eyes that have this impossible glittering to them. 

Ronan hates her right on sight. 

“Adam! Oh thank God!” She crows, and Ronan most certainly does not appreciate the way it’s like she can’t help but run her eyes up and down his person before settling on his face, features going soft as she spoke to him.

“Hey Kat,” Adam greets, and Ronan is savagely proud that it’s with distinctly less enthusiasm. “whats going on?”

“Professor Gomez! I completely and totally lost the paper where i wrote all the junk he wanted for our presentations! And I’m totally wigging out because it’s too late to email him now and I haven’t started! And I don’t even remember what he even kinda wanted! Like fuck! I know he’s old but learn how to put shit online right? And I’m just such a mess and—“

Adam rises up a hand, lips quirked in an amused half smile. “Aren’t you presenting tomorrow?”

“You see my dilemma then!” She presses, big, caff like eyes pleading with him. 

“I don’t know how you put yourself through so much pressure the night of.”

“We’re all not geniuses like you Parrish,” she says in what Ronan bets was meant to be a scoff, but instead came out fond and self deprecating.

“Thankfully not,” Adam winked.”Let me grab my notebook from my room, I don’t need it anymore anyhow.”

“Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” She almost gushed.

“Course,” Adam says before turning slightly so that he’s only looking at Ronan, one eyed quirked in silent command for him to stay put. Ronan’s answering twist of the lips— telling him that he’s not his fucking keeper— must’ve not had the same bite behind it as intended because Adam only chuckles before elbow checking him and pivoting around back to his room. 

Just as soon as he’s out of ear shot the inevitable, exceedingly awkward, silence basically collapses between Ronan and this new girl who’s distinctly apart of Adam’s life that Ronan is separated from. 

Again, Ronan decidedly does not like her.

“So, ah, I’m Kat,” she tries to introduce, as if Ronan gave one singular fuck. “And you must be Adam’s boyfriend… Ronan?”

Something warm and content coils deep in Ronan’s gut at the idea that Adam’s spoken about him to his college friends, to this girl in particular. That they know of him and could probably rattle off a few superficial facts about him that Adam’s told them. It makes him feel relevant, thought about. Makes him feel like Adam misses him nearly as much Ronan does him.

But this intruder doesn’t need to see the pleasure that causes.

“No shit,” he says with venom. “What gave it away? The just got fucked hair he’s sporting or the fact his jeans are sagging enough so you can see him wearing my Calvin boxers.”

In an instant, something passes through the girl’s, Kat’s, eyes, her mouth set in a straight line and posture stiff. 

“No actually, I just got a distinct, woe with me, tragic white boy with a past vibe from the little bit of descriptions Adam’s managed out, and well, you seem to fit that quite nicely.”

Ronan doesn’t mean for the huff of laughter to spill out his lips, but it does, and he may or may not hate her just a little less.

“Sorry,” she says with a grimace, falling back to a more relaxed stance. “That was rude.”

“What the fuck ever,” Ronan shrugs, snide.

“Right,” she nods, worrying on her bottom lip. “Well, ah… Adam’s doing great here.”

“Did I ask for your assessment on how’s Adam doing?”

“The way you were smiling at him before I interrupted and how you stared after his ass when he left was question enough,” Kat sniffs, and no never mind. Ronan definitely does not like her, not even slightly. 

“Fuck off.”

“He’s like flourishing,” she continues, as if completely impervious to Ronan’s nasty attitude. And fuck, he’s actually worried that Sargent’s taunting might’ve been right and love has made him soft. Or maybe this chick is just made out of some hard stuff, which then of course leads to the subsequent question of how is it that Adam seems to attract the impossible to him like he’s some sort of ley line all his own.

“Pardon me if I think you saying he’s flourishing is a load of bull shit considering you’ve known’m for like a hand full of weeks. And I own a fucking farm, I know what bull shit looks like.”

She pulls a face but charges on anyways, only ducking her head ever so slightly. Ronan supposes that’s as much of a concession as he’s ever gonna get from her. 

“Okay, point, that’s reasonable. But still, he’s changed, even just from that distant, aloof boy from my orientation group back in August… He’s like open up to some people in like certain ways… I mean like sure yeah it’s all really basic rudimentary stuff about’m, but like at least he’s letting people in? Yah know?”

Ronan does know, he knows probably better than anybody— even Gansey and Blue— that the one thing Adam hates is talking about himself, that he prefers the cold exterior to ever letting someone all the way in. They’re working on it, Ronan’s not exactly a walk in the fucking park either… 

Ronan nods to her, nods and ignores the all too familiar gleam to her eyes and touch of color to her cheeks. He looks at her and pretends he doesn’t remember that expression looking back at him in the mirror for sophomore and junior and a good chunk of senior year too, until he realized he might’ve had a chance.

“Yeah,” he tells her, watches as she darts her gaze anywhere but at him. “I know.”

She lets loose some of the static in the air with a little cough, and Ronan is thankful for it. 

“But yeah,” she continues on as if nothing had passed. “He’s a life saver, this Spanish class is way harder than they let on. I mean I know he says his Ma didn’t speak much of it at home but like you must’ve heard considering you guys went to school together. Like some of the dialect is just innate, I swear. I mean I think the ability to role your Rs is an abomination, and I’m like so jealous.”

She continues on with her nervous chatter, but Ronan doesn’t take any of it in, he’s still stuck on the bit where she made it seem as if Adam had some natural inclination to the language at hand…. As if his mother spoke it or something. And well, Ronan was never made privy to that, like ever, and he doesn’t know how he should feel about that. The fact that she, this random college friend, knew something Ronan definitely did not about the boy he’s suppose to be in relationship with.

She trails off and Ronan doesn’t need to turn around to know it’s because Adam’s finally returned. 

“Stuff highlighted in yellow are the requirements, orange’s the supplemental readings that should help, and green’s extra credit.”

“Oh God! Thank you Adam!” She squawks, full of glee when she leaps into his arms. “I could totally kiss you right now, ya know if your totally ripped, completely cross boyfriend weren’t standing right here… Hah, ah that was a joke, if it wasn’t clear…” She directs that part to Ronan and he just bares his teeth at her. “Oh, okay then.

With another round of thank yous, Kat waves goodbye. “See you in class tomorrow for my inevitably amazing presentation!”

“Oh, ah actually I won’t be there. Me and Ronan are going out to the city tonight for a long weekend,” he jostles his duffle as if to prove a point and Kat instantly smiles. 

“Are you telling me that Adam Parrish is taking an actual day off? Under his own free will?”

“I am,” he laughs.

“I’ll make sure to take you worthy notes then.”

“Appreciate it.”

“Can we get the fuck going before we completely miss our train?” Ronan interjects, only partially meaning it.

“You got yourself a real peach Parrish,” she harrumphs before walking off.

Adam glowers a total of three and a half minutes before dissolving into peals of laughter at a face Ronan makes at him. 

“Dork.”

“Dumbass.”

.-

The hotel suite is nice, nicer than the pictures on line lead on, and nicer than Adam would’ve ever allowed if he had any say, but Ronan’s trying to be fucking romantic or what the fuck ever, so he paid for it without telling him and he told Parrish to shove a dick down his throat when he started chiding at him for being so lavish— so not Frugal, so not him— with his money… And well.

“You taste like dick,” Ronan snarks, as cheeky as a snake can get, and Adam just throws him the bird when he leads down for another kiss.

“I’ll tell Gansey you don’t like his flavor,” Adam goads.

“Hey! What the fuck did I say about bringing up Gansey or any of them when our dicks are touching?”

“Huh, I dunno?” Adam blinks, faux owlish. God, Ronan’s in love with such a sarcastic asshole.

“I hate you and this is over.” Ronan tells him, matter of fact.

“Sounds reasonable,” Adam says, unimpressed while he gets up. The dim light of the room caresses the soft lines and flat planes of his beautiful face, skirts across the dips and valleys of his shoulders and stomach muscles and brings out the specs of gold in his hair. Ronan thinks back to earlier that day when Adam had teasingly called him an enigma, and silently laughs to himself, because Adam knows him. Adam knows the gears and slings that operate in his body and the staples of his life that sing in his soul. The memory of his parents, Matthew— reluctantly Declan too— The Barns, Adam himself. 

Adam knows all the intimate bits that string Ronan together but sometimes Ronan wonders if it’ll ever be a mutual trade. 

Adam’s always been beautiful to him, like a favorite piece of art that you can’t quite make out behind all the shadows, but now Ronan thinks that he’s also just as riddling as some of those posh paintings that hang up in places like The Whitney, the ones that Niall always pointed out in wonderment when he took his boys during their frequent family trips to New York City. Yes, Ronan thinks Niall would’ve been very much intrigued by Adam if they had ever met.

Swallowing down a lump he can feel start to form, Ronan breathes in before speaking, afraid that his voice might crack like some fucking ballerina.

“That Kat chick is fucking annoying.” Is what he decides to blurt out. 

“She’s not so bad once you get to know her,” Adam admonishes, redressing into a pair of Ronan’s slightly too long sweats. “She’s ambitious though, already the secretary to the Black Student Union and is running for a senate seat for student government.”

“well la-di-da,” Ronan snarls, derisive.

“Someone’s sour after a phenomenal BJ, if I do say so myself,” Adam counters, picking up the clicker and flipping on CNN to the muted tv.

There’s a thousand thoughts warring inside of Ronan’s head right now. Cursing at Adam and just moving on with the conversation and their weekend. Cursing at Adam and staying in his admittedly foul mood. Asking Adam just how many of these impossibly pretty, impossibly bright college kids are flirting with him while he stays oblivious. Asking him if he regrets having a ball and chain back in Henrietta. But what eventually clammers out his throat in a burning fury and pours from his lips is something that’s been nagging at him all fucking night long. 

“I didn’t know your mom spoke Spanish?” 

Adam turns around to him, lips pinched and brows furrowed, probably trying to parse out why Ronan sounds so peeved off.

“Ah yeah, I mean like her whole family’s from Mexico, she grew up speaking it.”

“Didn’t know she was Mexican either,” Ronan very nearly barks, hates how this suddenly feels like a betrayal. “So what you’re half Mexican and half…”

Adam’s face goes blank, and Ronan knows he’s annoyed him, truly, now.

“I dunno what the fuck Robert was, a bunch of different white trash shit. Why do you care?”

“You know my fucking heritage.”

“Niall’s a hundred percent Irish, and your ma is hundred percent dream, it isn’t that hard to explain.”

“And yet you couldn’t explain that your mom was Mexican.”

“You couldn’t guess from a name like Claudia Flores?”

“So what, her fucking name is hispanic, how am I suppose to pick out from which exact country or if she actually spoke it.” Ronan doesn’t know how to be any more clear about this.

“I don’t know why you’re so mad? What is the big deal here?”

“You’re fucking college girlfriend knew and I didn’t?” Ronan finally says, feels the piercing in his chest begin to dissipate at the light of understanding starting to come over Adam’s face.

“You are such a fucking idiot.” He tells him, astonished.

“Real nice prick,” Ronan scrambles off the bed, hates how vulnerable he is just lying there. “Just go fuck off.”

But before Ronan could storm into the bathroom he feels Adam’s hand— long fingers and rough edges— circling around his wrist, gentle, like a question.

“Ronan you’re an idiot because you seem not to understand just how much I fucking love you.”

Ronan stays facing the door, refuses to show Adam what kind of an effect he has on him, how his face goes blotchy and throat feels like it’s constricting. 

“Fuck off Parrish,” Ronan repeats, though it’s in a much quieter tone.

“I don’t know how to convince you to the truth,” Adam continues to speak as if Ronan hadn’t interrupted, tugging on him so he turns around and they’re face to face, blue eyes boring into blue. “I’m in love with you, I think I was in love with you before I knew even I could actually feel it…. That I wasn’t my father and that I actually got to have you. You’re amazing Ronan, you’re everything.”

Adam breathes out, like he’s marveling at him, and Ronan can barely handle the wonderment in his eyes, the way he’s holding and gazing at Ronan like he’s something fragile, something precious. Something he’s in love with.

“Whatever,” Ronan finally huffs out before snaking his arms around Adam’s still naked torso and kissing him to an inch of his life. 

“I love you too,” Ronan eventually says once they’re back in bed, and his head is propped on Adam’s chest where he can hear the fluttering of his heartbeat, and Adam’s tracing small circles on his back. 

He doesn’t think either of them really understands how much the other feels in it’s entirety, but he’s ready to spend an eon to try.

**Author's Note:**

> This was such a joy to write, and it would truly and honestly mean all the moon and stars to me if you maybe left a comment below letting me know what you thought!!!
> 
> Also you can follow me on [Tumblr](http://Lenuxxx.tumblr.com)
> 
> ~Len


End file.
